Javan
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:''This article is about the Biblical name '''Javan'''. For [[Katherine Kurtz]]'s fictional character, see [[Javan of Gwynedd]]. "Javan" is also an adjectival form for [[Java]], which refers to something from the island of Java, and distinct from the term [[Javanese]]''
'''Javan''' ([[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] '''יָוָן''', [[Standard Hebrew]] '''Yavan''', [[Tiberian Hebrew]] '''Yāwān''') was the fourth son of [[Noah]]'s son [[Japheth]] according to the "[[Table of Nations]]" (Genesis chapter 10) in the [[Hebrew Bible]]. [[Flavius Josephus]] states the traditional view that this individual was the ancestor of the [[Greek people]].
Also serving as the [[Hebrew]] name for [[Greece]] or Greeks in general, ''Yavan'' or ([[Tiberian Hebrew|Tiberian]]) ''Yāwān'' (יָוָן) is probably cognate with the name of the eastern Greeks, the [[Ionians]] (Greek ''Iōnes'', earlier ''Ia(w)ones''). The Greek race has been known by cognate names throughout the Eastern [[Mediterranean]] and beyond — even in [[Sanskrit]] (''[[yavana]]''). In [[Greek mythology]], the eponymous forefather of the Ionians is similarly called [[Ion (mythology)|Ion]], a son of [[Apollo]].
Javan is also found in [[apocalyptic literature]] in the [[Book of Daniel]], 8:21-22, in reference to the King of Greece (יון) and the Greek Empire — most commonly interpreted as a reference to [[Alexander the Great]].<ref>See the classic reference commentary of Matthew Henry: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc4.Dan.ix.html</ref>
While Javan is generally associated with the ancient Greeks and Greece (cf. Gen. 10:2, Dan. 8:21, Zech. 9:13, etc.), his sons (as listed in Genesis 10) are usually associated with locations in the Northeastern Mediterranean Sea and Anatolia: [[Elishah]] (modern Cyprus), [[Tarshish]] (modern southern Turkey), [[Kittim]] (modern Cyprus), and [[Dodanim]] (alt. 1 Chron. 1:7 'Rodanim,' the island of [[Rhodes]], west of modern Turkey between Cyprus and the mainland of Greece).<ref>Anson F. Rainey, ''The Sacred Bridge: Carta’s Atlas of the Biblical Word'', Carta: Jerusalem, 2006, 27; and Yohanan Aharoni, Michael Avi-Yonah, Anson F. Rainey, Ze’ev Safrai, ''The Macmillan Bible Atlas'', Macmillan Publishing: New York, 1993, p. 21.</ref>
==References==
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==External links==
*[http://latter-rain.com/ot/gene.htm Old Testament Genealogy]
*[http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i4/noah.asp The sixteen grandsons of Noah]
{{Sons of Noah}}
[[Category:Torah people]]
[[Category:Hebrew Bible nations]]
[[Category:Japhetic]]
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